My guest today is Ted Meissner, the Executive Director of the Secular Buddhist Association, host of their official podcast The Secular Buddhist, and on the Advisory Board for the Spiritual Naturalist Society. His background is in the Zen and Theravada traditions, he is a regular speaker on interfaith panel discussions, and is interested in examining the evolution of contemplative practice in contemporary culture. Ted works at the University of Massachusetts Medical School Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society doing community development and teaching Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.

In addition to all that formal stuff, Ted is also one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Whether or not mindfulness, is your cup of tea or not, Ted’s approach to life is definitely working for him. When I asked Ted if I could sit down with him, it was with the goal of learning more about Secular Buddhism, because it seemed like a contradictory term. Just like when someone identifies as “Christian” there is no way to know whether they take communion with wine or grape juice (and don’t for a minute think that’s not an important question to a lot of Christians) It is important to remember not all Buddhists have the same philosophy, there are many differing ideas and schools of thought. Some Buddhists believe in reincarnation and some don’t. There are around 350 million Buddhists worldwide, and just 6 months ago I was completely ignorant of different and nuanced those different belief systems were.

As Ted is a secular Buddhist, this interview will focus on what he believes, and I hope that you find it as interesting and thought provoking as I did.